Two Serious Ladies (21 page)

"What
is
the matter?" she asked him. "Now it's been a very pleasant evening and we all need some sleep."

He laughed in her face. "You're some lunatic," he said to her, "and you sure don't know anything about people. I'm all right here, though." He pulled the sheet up farther and lay there breathing heavily, "There's a five o'clock ferry that leaves in about a half hour. Will you come back tomorrow evening? I'll be where I was tonight at that bar."

She promised him that she would return on the following evening, and after he had explained to her how to get to the dock, she opened his window for him and left.

Stupidly enough, Miss Goering had forgotten to take her key with her and she was obliged to knock on the door in order to get into her house. She pounded twice, and almost immediately she heard someone running down the steps. She could tell that it was Arnold even before he had opened the door. He was wearing a rose-colored pajama jacket and a pair of trousers. His suspenders were hanging down over his hips. His beard had grown quite a bit for such a short time and he looked sloppier than ever.

"What's the matter with you, Arnold?" said Miss Goering. "You look dreadful."

"Well, I've had a bad night, Christina. I just put Bubbles to sleep a little while ago; she's terribly worried about you. As a matter of fact, I don't think you've shown us much consideration."

"Who is Bubbles?" Miss Goering asked him.

"Bubbles," he said, "is the name I have for Miss Gamelon."

"Well," said Miss Goering, going into the house and seating herself in front of the fireplace, "I took the ferry back across to the mainland and I became very much involved. I might return tomorrow night," she added, "although I don't really want to very much."

"I don't know why you find it so interesting and intellectual to seek out a new city," said Arnold, cupping his chin in his hand and looking at her fixedly.

"Because I believe the hardest thing for me to do is really move from one thing to another, partly," said Miss Goering.

"Spiritually," said Arnold, trying to speak in a more sociable tone, "spiritually I'm constantly making little journeys and changing my entire nature every six months."

"I don't believe it for a minute," said Miss Goering.

"No, no, it is true. Also
I can tell you that
I
think it is absolute nonsense to move physically from one place to another. All places are more or less alike,"

Miss Goering did not answer this. She pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders and of a sudden looked quite old and very sad indeed.

Arnold began to doubt the validity of what he had just said, and immediately resolved to make exactly the same excursion from which Miss Goering had just returned, on the following night. He squared his jaw and pulled out a notebook from his pocket.

"Now, will you give me the particulars on how to reach the mainland?" said Arnold. "The hours when the train leaves, and so forth."

"Why do you ask?" said Miss Goering.

"Because I'm going to go there myself tomorrow night. I should have thought you would have guessed that by this time."

"No, judging by what you just finished saying to me, I would not have guessed it."

"Well, I talk one way," said Arnold, "but I'm really, underneath, the same kind of maniac that you are."

"I would like to see your father," Miss Goering said to him.

"I think he's asleep. I hope he will come to his senses and go home," said Arnold.

"Well, I am hoping the contrary," said Miss Goering. "I'm terribly attached to him. Let's go upstairs and just look into his room."

They went up the stairs together and Miss Gamelon came out to meet them on the landing. Her eyes were all swollen and she was wrapped in a heavy wool bathrobe.

She began speaking to Miss Goering in a voice that was thick with sleep. "Once more, and it will be the last you will see of Lucy Gamelon."

"Now, Bubbles," said Arnold, "remember this is not an ordinary household and you must expect certain eccentricities on the part of the inmates. You see, I have dubbed us all inmates."

"Arnold," said Miss Gamelon, "now don't you begin. You know what I told you this afternoon about talking drivel."

"Please, Lucy," said Arnold.

"Come, come, let's all go and take a peek at Arnold's father," suggested Miss Goering.

Miss Gamelon followed them only in order to continue admonishing Arnold, which she did in a low voice. Miss Goering pulled the door open. The room was very cold and she realized for the first time that it was already bright outdoors. It had all happened very quickly while she was talking to Arnold in the parlor, but there it was nearly always dark because of the thick bushes outside.

Arnold's father was sleeping on his back. His face was still and he breathed regularly without snoring. Miss Goering shook him a few times by the shoulder.

"The procedures in this house," said Miss Gamelon, "are what amount to criminal. Now you're waking up an old man who needs his sleep, at the crack of dawn. It makes me shudder to stand here and see what you've become, Christina."

At last Arnold's father awakened. It took him a little while to realize what had happened, but when he had, he leaned on his elbows and said in a very chipper manner to Miss Goering:

"Good morning, Mrs. Marco Polo, What beautiful treasures have you brought back from the East? I'm glad to see you, and if there's anywhere you want me to go with you, I'm ready." He fell back on his pillow with a thump.

Miss Goering said that she would see him later, that at the moment she was badly in need of some rest. They left the room, and before they had closed the door behind them, Arnold's father was already asleep. On the landing Miss Gamelon began to cry and she buried her face for a moment in Miss Goering's shoulder. Miss Goering held her very tightly and begged her not to cry. Then she kissed both Arnold and Miss Gamelon good-night. When she arrived in her room she was overcome with fright for a few moments, but shortly she fell into a deep sleep.

At about five thirty on the following afternoon Miss Goering announced her intention of returning again that evening to the mainland. Miss Gamelon was standing up, sewing one of Arnold's socks. She was dressed more coquettishly than was her habit, with a ruffle around the neck of her dress and a liberal coating of rouge on her cheeks. The old man was in a big chair in the corner reading the poetry of Longfellow, sometimes aloud, sometimes to himself, Arnold was still dressed in the same fashion as the night before, with the exception of a sweater which he had pulled on over his pajama top. There was a big coffee stain on the front of his sweater, and the ashes of his cigarette had spilled over his chest. He was lying on the couch half asleep.

"You will go back there again over my dead body," said Miss Gamelon. "Now, please, Christina, be sane and do let us all have a pleasant evening together."

Miss Goering sighed. "Well, you and Arnold can have a perfectly pleasant evening together without me, I am sorry, I'd love to stay, but I really feel that I must go."

"You drive me wild with your mysterious talk," said Miss Gamelon. "If only some member of your family were here! Why don't we phone for a taxi," she said hopefully, "and go to the city? We might eat some Chinese food and go to the theater afterwards, or a picture show, if you are still in your pinch-penny mood."

"Why don't you and Arnold go to the city and eat some Chinese food and then go to the theater? I will be very glad to have you go as my guests, but I'm afraid I can't accompany you."

Arnold was growing annoyed at the ease with which Miss Goering disposed of him. Her manner also gave him a very bad sense of being inferior to her.

"I'm sorry, Christina," he said from his couch, "but I have no intention of eating Chinese food. I have been planning all along to take a little jaunt to the mainland opposite this end of the island too, and nothing will stop me. I wish you'd come along with me, Lucy; as a matter of fact, I don't see why we can't all go along together. It is quite senseless that Christina should make such a morbid affair out of this little saunter to the mainland. Actually there is nothing to it,"

"Arnold!" Miss Gamelon streamed at him. "You're losing your mind too, and if you think I am going on a wild-goose chase aboard a train and a ferry just to wind up in some little rat-trap, you're doubly crazy. Anyway, I've heard that it is a very tough little town, besides being dreary and without any interest whatsoever."

"Nevertheless," said Arnold, sitting up and planting his two feet on the floor, "I'm going this evening."

"In that case," said Arnold's father, "I'm going too."

Secretly Miss Goering was delighted that they were coming and She did not have the courage to deter them, although she felt that it would have been the correct thing for her to do. Her excursions would be more or less devoid of any moral value in her own eyes if they accompanied her, but she was so delighted that she convinced herself that perhaps she might allow it just this time.

"You had better come along, Lucy," said Arnold; "otherwise you are going to be here all alone."

"That's perfectly all right, my dear," said Lucy. "I'll be the only one that comes out whole, in the end. And it might be very delightful to be here without any of you."

Arnold's father made an insulting noise with his mouth, and Miss Gamelon left the room.

This time the little train was filled with people and there were quite a few boys going up and down the aisle selling candy and fruit. It had been a curiously warm day and there had been a shower of short duration, one of those showers that are so frequent in summer but so seldom occur in the fall.

The sun was just setting and the shower had left in its wake quite a beautiful rainbow, which was only visible to those people who were seated on the left side of the train. However, most of the passengers who had been seated on the right side were now leaning over the more fortunate ones and getting quite a fair view of the rainbow too.

Many of the women were naming aloud to their friends the colors that they were able to distinguish. Everyone on the train seemed to love it except Arnold, who, now that he had asserted himself, felt terribly depressed, partly as a result of having had to move from his couch and consider the prospect of a dull evening and partly also because he doubted very much whether he would be able to make it up with Lucy Gamelon. She was, he felt certain, the type of person who could remain angry for weeks.

"Oh, I think this is terribly, terribly gay," said Miss Goering. "This rainbow and this sunset and all these people jabbering away like magpies. Don't you think it's gay?" Miss Goering was addressing Arnold's father.

"Oh, yes," he said, "It's a real magic carpet."

Miss Goering searched his face because his voice sounded a little sad to her. He did, as a matter of fact, appear to be slightly uneasy. He kept looking around at the passengers and pulling his tie.

They finally left the train and boarded the ferry. They all stood at the prow together as Miss Goering had done on the previous night. This time when the ferry landed, Miss Goering looked up and saw no one coming down the hill.

"Usually," she said to them, forgetting that she herself had only made the trip once before, "this hill is swarming with people. I cannot imagine what has happened to them tonight."

"It's a steep hill," said Arnold's father. "Is there no way of getting into the town without climbing that hill?"

"I don't know," said Miss Goering. She looked at him and noticed that his sleeves were too long for him. As a matter of fact, his overcoat was about a half-size too large.

If there had been no one on the hill going to or from the ferry, the main street was swarming with people. The cinema was all lighted up and there was a long line forming in front of the box office, There had obviously been a fire, because there were three red engines parked on one side of the street, a few blocks up from the cinema. Miss Goering judged that it had been of no consequence since she could see neither traces of smoke nor charred buildings. However, the engines added to the gaiety of the street as there were many young people crowded around them making jokes with the firemen who remained in the trucks, Arnold walked along at a brisk pace, carefully examining everything on the street and pretending to be very much lost in his own impressions of the town.

"I see what you mean," he said to Miss Goering, "it's glorious."

"What is glorious?" Miss Goering asked him.

"All this." Suddenly Arnold stopped dead. "Oh look, Christina, what a beautiful sight!" He had made them stop in front of a large empty lot between two buildings. The empty lot had been converted into a brand-new basket-ball court. The court was very elegantly paved with gray asphalt and brightly lighted by four giant lamps that were focused on the players and on the basket. There was a ticket office at one side of the court where the participants bought their right to play in the game for one hour. Most of the people playing were little boys. There were several men in uniform and Arnold judged that they worked for the court and filled in when an insufficient number of people bought tickets to form two complete teams. Arnold flushed with pleasure.

"Look, Christina," he said, "you run along while I try my hand at this; I'll come and get Pop and you later."

She pointed the bar out to him, but she had the feeling that Arnold was not paying much attention to what she was saying. She stood for a moment with Arnold's father and they watched him rush up to the ticket office and hurriedly push his change through the wicket. He was on the court in no time, running around in his overcoat and jumping up in the air with his arms apart. One of the uniformed men had stepped quickly out of the game in order to cede his place to Arnold. But he was now trying desperately to attract his attention because Arnold had been in such a hurry at the ticket office that the agent had not had time to give him the colored arm-band by which the players were able to distinguish the members of their own team.

"I suppose," said Miss Goering, "that we had better go along. Arnold, I imagine, will follow us shortly."